Providing Incisive Commentary on the Giants and the NFL

I thought on 12/4/17, one of the greatest days in New York Football Giants History, the Giants’ road for the future would get better. That was the day that the Giants, after a decade of bad draft picks and personnel moves, finally fired Jerry “Reach” Reese. I could not have been more wrong. I thought highly of Gettleman because he was with the Giants before, and would be able to turn things around. It is my belief, he has turned out to be a disaster. Now, I can see why he was thrown out of Carolina. He is very arrogant and pompous. He has made moves in his short tenure that rival the mistakes of Reese. I know that there is a lot of “coach speak” before the draft, but it seems like whatever Gettleman said, the opposite was true!

Gettleman is the King of Dead Money. As a result, of his mistakes and getting rid of Jerry Reach’s many mistakes. He had over $43 million in dead money in 2018 and in 2019 he already had $33.7 million by March. If you juxtaposition that to a perennial winning franchise, the New England Patriots, they have only $4.8 million in dead money this year. Earlier in the year that was about $700,000. They had Gronk retire for a $2 million hit and the wide receiver Mitchell, who had to retire due to injuries. He was only $145,000. That accounts for almost half of their money through no fault of their own. They have professional management. You can’t have 20 plus % of your cap money every year and not being used to help you win. Immediately, I would recommend the Giants hire Scott Pioli as a consultant. He is available and can eventually take over from Gettleman when he gets launched. He was the architect of the Patriots dynasty. He put the original run together in the early 2000’s when they won 3 Super Bowls in 4 years.

With Jerry “Reach” in the draft, every year the pain from the previous year’s draft would lessen by the time you got back to the next year’s draft. Then on draft day, it would all come back. He would throw your heart in the microwave to make sure it was well done. The bad drafts of Jerry were legendary. He took Ereck Flowers with the 9th pick in the 2015 draft. We all know how great a bust that was. By the way OT Andrus Peat went 4 picks later. He was selected to the Pro Bowl and was first team all pro in 2018. Ereck was a late first round or 2nd round talent with a ton of questions about him. In 2016, Jerry was a deer in the headlights as the 2 players they wanted were snatched just ahead of the Giants at pick 8 and 9. OT Jack Conklin went at 8 and Leonard Floyd went at 9. The Giants are sitting there at 10 without a clue! Move up earlier Jerry! So Jerry reaches for CB Eli Apple at 10! Apple was projected as a late first round pick at best. He had a pedestrian career with the Gmen and Gettleman traded him to the Saints after only 2 and a half years with the team admitting Jerry’s mistake. How the hell is that value when the 10th pick, who should be a franchise player, is gone! I lost my mind when he picked QB Davis Webb in the third round of the 2017 draft. You can check my Twitter account where I went crazy and said that was a wasted pick especially when Eli hadn’t missed a game for 14 years at that time. I said he would never play a down for the Giants and he never did! A real GM would have seen the supreme talent tight end OJ Howard falling out of the top 10 picks where he was projected to go. Jerry could have taken that 3rd round WASTED pick and try to move up (the draft chart says that is reasonable compensation) and get Howard. He will have a breakout year this year. He showed flashes of brilliance and was held back by the team resigning Brate for $41M right after drafting him which makes no sense and OJ being injured.

Yes the Giants did get Evan Engram in that draft 4 picks later. He is good. However to paraphrase the fairy tale, he is a wide receiver in tight end (sheep’s) clothing. He has 4.42 speed from the Combine but he is not the well-rounded TE that Howard is. He is not a blocker and he does drop passes. I agree though he is not a bad pick, not the best pick. He will have a big season with no OBJ and Dave G failing to get a real number one X receiver. I can write a white paper on the crap picks of Jerry “Reach” and Mara and Tisch fiddled when Rome was burning!

But now I have to get to the 2019 draft when I totally lost my mind again. I have photos of all my tweets from this year’s draft so they can be retweeted in the years to come. I hope I do not have to tell you I told you so. I hope Jones is good because we are stuck with him. I will apologize to Mara, Gettleman, and et al. and admit I was wrong if Jones turns out to be another Rodgers. I have no problem admitting I was dead wrong. However, based on the reaction to the Jones pick so high, the world has been on my side so far.

Jerry may throw your heart in the microwave but Gettleman is going to throw it in the blast furnace to make sure there is nothing left!!! Let’s step back. Everyone on the planet knew that the Giants had to get a new franchise quarterback to replace Eli Manning. Here’s also what everyone on the planet knows. The 2018 class of college quarterbacks was very strong. The 2019 class of college quarterbacks sucks and that the 2020 class is very strong. Out of 11 QB’s in question between 2018 and 2020 at be Gettleman at best picked the 9th best out of that group and I think making him number 9 is charitable. Daniel Jones was the consensus 4th best QB in the 2019 draft behind Murray, Haskins and Lock. He is 92nd in college at YPA at 6.2, which is terrible. Yeah I know he was playing with bad receivers who dropped every pass. Excuses are like butts, we all have one. If he was deemed good coming out of high school, he would have been at a better program. At the last minute he got into Duke or he would have been playing in real obscurity.

Gettleman is on search to find the Eli clone, who just happens to be Daniel Jones. The Giants are on a propaganda campaign that would make Josef Goebbels and the cold war Russian news agency, Pravda, very proud. It started the OTA’s with the Giants saying, Jones is “dropping dimes”, against air I mind you. Then it was Golden Tate saying he is great. Next it was Pat Shurmer saying that he may have a controversy as to who to start back in May. The latest is Phil Simms saying he is going to be great. I could go on as there is a long list. Everyone is enamored because Jones can run. Well compared to Eli who is a statue, he looks like Lamar Jackson.

Going back to the 2018 draft, the Gmen had the 2nd pick. They have not drafted that high since 1981. If you knew you needed a QB, this was the time to take a QB! They could have had Sam Darnold. He looked great in the first 2 preseason games so far. The Jets finally put some pieces around him and he will have a breakout year. With one more good draft they will be a good playoff team. It looks like they may be a borderline playoff team this year. I pray that Darnold has a great 15 year career at Met Life stadium, so the Giants can be reminded every day of their mistake. There is no doubt that Saquan Barkley is a supreme talent. However, you win with a franchise quarterback. For all his greatness, the Giants only won 5 games. If you do your homework, you can find superior running backs in later rounds. Kamara and Hunt were 3rd round picks. The Broncos found an undrafted free agent, Philip Lindsay, who ran for over 1000 yards and ended up at the Pro Bowl.

Given the fact that you are paying Eli $23.2 million and he has one year left, there was no need to draft a quarterback in 2019! Certainly there was no reason to draft a QB with the number 6 pick! At the 6th pick I want a 15 year franchise QB like Marino, Elway, Montana, Luck, Rodgers, Brees, Aikman, Peyton Manning and the list goes on. Daniel Jones is not worthy to hold the jock straps of any of these QB’s!

They created this conspiracy theory that they had to draft Jones at 6 there because there were 2 mystery teams out there that wanted the great Daniel Jones. Well the draft is long over, tell us who the hell they were. Giants’ fans want to know! The beat reporters have come up with that it was Washington and Denver. Daniel Snyder from the Redskins loved Haskins. He wanted him at all cost and was willing to trade up but he fell to him at 15 because nobody else wanted him. He only started 14 games in college. Denver needed a TE like oxygen. Once Hockenson was gone at 8, everyone in the free world know they were going to take either Fant or Irv Smith. They took the other Iowa TE, Fant. Let’s say that the fairy tale is true. You are telling me that with 11 other picks in this draft, Gettleman is not good enough to move up. I don’t care if he has to use 4 picks at that point, and get Jones! Again not that I think this is a smart move. Also as part of the propaganda campaign, Duke Head coach, David Cutcliffe, long time Manning QB family guru, also proclaimed there were 2 teams interested in Jones and they had to grab them there.

Dave Gettleman stated repeatedly that he can win with Eli and they are not rebuilding. Vegas says you are going to win 6 games. I think they are right on. I have you at between 5 and 7 as the best case scenario. To win 7 games, the Giants will have to beat Buffalo (who has a vastly improved defense), Tampa Bay, the Redskins, twice, Cardinals, Lions, and Dolphins. Teams usually win a game or two that they should lose and lose a game or two that they should win. With 6 wins, you are going to draft around number 6 again. At this point in 2020, I would have moved up, and draft one the next year’s franchise QB’s, Tua, Herbert or Fromm. You can’t tell me from the 6-8 hole with using 2020 and/or 2021 picks they couldn’t grab one of these premier guys.

Yes I know Jones went 5 for 5 with a touchdown in the first preseason game. However this is against players who will be driving for FedEx or flipping pizzas come the end of August. You will not know how good he is until he gets into a real game and the other team game plans against him. Then we will see if he is the Messiah! Based on the second preseason game, he has some ball security problems.

Let me tell you what the dean of New York radio sports commentators, Mike Francesca, had to say about the Jones pick. Mike is a respected voice concerning all New York sports for over 30 years. Here’s his comments:

The WFAN host blasted the Giants’ decision to select Duke Quarterback Daniel Jones with the sixth overall pick in Thursday’s draft, declaring that general manager, Dave Gettleman, “talked out of both sides of his face by claiming that the Giants could retool and win at the same time with Manning and then using the team’s top pick to take a player who presumably will not help them in 2019, the last year of Manning’s contract.

“The Giants have absolutely screwed Eli manning. Absolutely screwed him”, Francesca said on his “Mike’s on” app. He then suggested he believes Eli knew the Giants were going to go this route. Francesca said that he thought the Giants may take a quarterback later in the draft or trade for the Cardinals’ Josh Rosen. I am absolutely stunned with what the Giants did. I never thought the Giants would take him at 6. It shows me that you had no plan.

Francesca blasted the Giants for passing on a better quarterbacks last year and missing on a chance to add a difference maker to a depleted defense this year. Francesca said he feels the pick shows Gettleman and Pat Shurmur are looking forward to 2020 already and “have bought themselves a bunch of time at Eli’s expense.”

“If the Giants were going to take a quarterback at number 6, if that was their plan, then why would you bring Eli Manning back?”, he said. You could have used his money to bring in new players. You take your number 6 quarterback and move to the future. You let him learn on the job.

“They have no chance to have a competitive team this year. They have no defense. The veteran players Gettleman brought in last year were awful. If you are rebuilding, why would you bring Eli manning back? Manning is now, as of right now, is dead man walking with this franchise.

“I thought they had a plan. I was wrong. They don’t have a plan. None of it makes any sense. There’s not a chance in the world this team can be good this year. Not a chance in the world.

I agree 100% with Mike’s points. Eli had to know his days were numbers. Mike states it in dramatic form, but he should have been traded at the start of free agency. The great point that he makes is not drafting Josh Allen, the Kentucky edge rusher that fell right into their laps at 6.

I have never gone from being so ecstatic on draft night, April 25th to being so devastated within 120 seconds when they picked Daniel Jones 6th!!! The Raiders picked DE Clelin Ferrell, who was slated to go on every board from pick 15 to 25. That meant that the Giants were either going to get the best LB in the draft, Devin White or Josh Allen. Both are premiere Pro Bowl elite talents. When Tampa bay picked White, I was tweeting with a 100 exclamation points, the Giants are going to get Allen. But what happens is we get the supremely over drafted Daniel Jones.

The Giants won both Super Bowl 42 and 46 with their pass rush, the famed NASCAR package. Justin Tuck was MVP of Super Bowl 42, not Eli Manning. They always give it to the quarterback.

So looking to the 2019 season, the Giants still have holes. They do not have a #1 receiver. Golden Tate may be a good receiver but he plays the slot with Sheppard. Who is going outside? He did not play well at the Eagles because they already had a slot receiver in Agholor. Latimer is the #3, and the rest are 4-6th receivers who will make little impact. The best seems to be Fowler. The 5th Pick Darius Slayton will see little playing time unless there are a number of injuries. Gettleman was asleep when the AAF broke up. He should have contacted Johnson or Ross. Other teams did. This is a no lose proposition. You bring them into camp, see if they are any good. If not cut them and it is no harm, no foul. I watched a lot of AAF, there was definitely some NFL caliber talent in that league.

The Giants have no pass rush. They were tied for 31st in sacks with 30 in 2018. The only team worse was the pitiful Raiders who had only 13 sacks! They could have used Allen as stated above. The linebackers are light with only Olgetree as a legit starter. The secondary is good. The picks of Baker in the first as probably the best corner in the draft and Love in the 4th that Gettleman stole there are good. Ballantine is also a very good late pick. We still have veteran Jackrabbit Jenkins. See I can say good things about Gettleman because I am honest and call it like it is. I would have paid Collins but I like them bringing in veteran safeties Bethea and getting Peppers in the OBJ deal is good. There is no depth in the offensive line. We have the best group of starters since O’Hara, Snee, Diehl and Seubert. I would have taken Taylor, Ford or Little for the OL instead of Baker at pick 30 that they moved up for. These were great talents that were still available. There was a hole on the right side. I was happy to see they brought in Remmers to fill it in free agency. I would have preferred to have a long time starter vs a short time fix, but he is good. I have been saying for 7 years that the Giants will lose 3 offensive linemen for 5 games or more every year. History has proven me correct.

One of the worst moves in the Gettleman era was to trade center Brett Jones before last season. Many people forget about that but the Prophet doesn’t forget anything pertaining to the Gmen! He was one of the best linemen we had! He trusted in journeyman, Halipio, who broke his leg in week 1. He is inferior to Jones. This is an example that happens every year to the Gmen. Just as I was talking about above. The backup running backs are pedestrian. If Barkley goes down, Gallman is the next man up. We still have the 5th round dart throw of Jerry of Paul Perkins. Nothing to say here. The defensive line is young and learning. We do have a great kicker in Rosas.

So again, I hope I am wrong in 2019, but I have to call it like it is because this is a rebuilding team that will win 5 to 7 games. If the Giants were a public company, Mara and Tisch would have been given golden parachutes by now for mismanagement. As the great Bill Parcells said, “You are what your record says you are.” The Giants record has been bad! For the past 6 years the Giants combined record works out to a 6 and 10 record. You had the one playoff year in 2016. However, the Giants showed up for 27 minutes in Green Bay before they imploded. I don’t know how you charge the thousands of dollars in inflated PSL money for losing seasons. God Bless the fans for paying it, but I am not one of them.

Other Observations:

One last comment on Coach Pat Shurmur. I am unimpressed. He makes too many mistakes that should be considered Football 101 and his time management is bad. I can never understand how he decided to go for 2 points after a touchdown when the Giants were down 14 points. In the Tampa bay game last year, he failed to challenge a play on Winston that would have resulted in the ball being placed 8 yards further back as they were entering the red zone. I will chart these in 2019 and report back at the end of the season.

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